Posted 5 years ago on May 21, 2012, 10:34 a.m. EST by BethS
(14)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

"Well, it's highly ironic that now over 100 of the protesters have been arrested and not a single banker, a CEO from Wall Street, anyone from corporate America — nobody, not one arrest of any of these people who brought down the economy in 2008. Who created schemes, financial schemes that not only destroyed the economy, but took away the future of this generation, of this young man and his children in the future. They have completely ruined it for people while they have become filthy rich. Not one of them arrested, but 100 of these people who have stood up non-violently against this madness, and they're arrested? This just boggles the mind."

The FEDERAL GOVERNMENT is barred from filing charges for fraud once 5 years has passed from the commission of the offense. IT'S 2012 NOW, and the Obama Justice Department hasn't tried a single Wall Street executive in a criminal court. Our President has said, when talking about what the world's largest investment and commercial banks did, that it was "immoral but not illegal." . Isn't that for a JURY TO DECIDE!!

Don't get confused, America doesn't have a mind of its own -- only a mind of those who engage with it. So you/we won't get anywhere by mere complaint outside it's walls. There is no "big brother" that's going to take pity on you. You have to appeal on principles.

"Equal protection of the law" -- no citiizen can be less than any other, so remember that any time you're feeling blinded by the dazzle of power that TV and well-dressed attorneys can make on you. You are the crack in the system. Find where the weight of bad policy is heaviest, and the slightest push will take it down. I can help you and would be glad to do so.

I think the conversation that you are referring to - Pres. Obama said that many of the activities that the banks were involved in were not illegal. This is techinically correct. In large part the meltdown was due to derivatives, nothing illegal about derivatives. Lots of bad judgement and greed, but not illegal. The bundling and selling of bad mortgages - possible securities fraud. An official from the DOJ has said that there is ongoing investigations of this.

But anyone that thinks that the government, Pres. Obama, the DOJ can go hard on Wall Street with indictments right now is being irresponsible. The largest banks control approx 70% of the wealth of the country. They are holding at least $200 trillion in derivatives. That's 3X the value of the entire world economy. Do you think that the banks are capitalized well enough in relation to their risk holdings? Going after the banks with federal indictments could cause another financial catastrophe. It could cause the stock price to fall, loss of capital, leading to a death spiral domino affect and we're going right over financial crisis cliff again.

No thank you. The responsible thing for Pres. Obama to do is not mess with the banks like this in a fragile economy. It sucks I know. The responsible thing to do is to develop an orderly dismantling of the Wall Street banks. Break them up piece by piece in an orderly way using anti-trust laws.

There are more and more experts in favor of breaking up the big banks. One of the more recent is the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Perhaps after there is enough support, and an orderly plan for breaking up the banks, Federal indictments can and will come about.

They can't be left to be this big. It's damaging to the economy and it's too risky. They're busy making swiss cheese of Dodd Frank and the Volcker Rule. They can't be effectively regulated at their current size and complexity. They can't manage their own size and complexity ($2billion JP Morgan loss), let alone think that regulators can regulate it, even if the appropriate rules were in place. I think even Alan Greenspan said it's not humanly possible.

What about going after former Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld . God they went after POOR MARTHA STEWART for inside trading, and threw her in jail. Berni Madoff didn't bring down the economy, he just ripped of thousands of people of billions of dollars and nobody went to jail with him. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE, that all these people went to their jobs as stock brokers and traders and investment bankers at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, and no one had any idea that something was up. They made an example out of Martha, and and an example out of Bernie, but no examples of ay of the banks CEO's. It all makes me SICK !If they don't do something now...it will surely happen again and again!

Indicting Martha Stewart and Bernie Madoff did not run the risk of sending the financial markets into a death spiral.

I don't think there is much doubt that all the big banks were involved in bundling and reselling, what they pretty well knew, were bad risky mortgage securities. Goldman Sachs was doing the same things that Lehman and Bear were doing. This is obvious based on the Congressional inquiry into the crisis. Goldmans Sachs got nailed in the inquiry. And there are many many civil lawsuits against them, as well as suits by the States AG's. This, they can withstand. They settle most of these lawsuits out of Court, not admitting guilt, and it's a cost of doing business. But a Federal indictment is a whole other thing.

If the Federal government were to go after Lehman or Bear for securities fraud, we all know that Goldman Sachs was doing the same thing. And if the government can make a case against Lehman, well, they can probably make a case against Goldman Sachs as well. This could send shockwaves through the markets. Whose gonna be indicted next? Goldman? JP Morgan? BOA? The financial markets would freak out. That could get ugly.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, TARP is not completely paid back yet. Because of the whole TARP thing - the government runs the risk of letting a bank use the taxpayers money to pay the legal bills/fines associated with being punished for the crisis they created in the first place.

Well if this wasn't fraud...then what is?
in the summer of 2008, Lehman Brothers executives promised investors that the company was sound. The bankruptcy examiner later discovered that Lehman Brothers had engaged in "actionable balance-sheet manipulation." How can that not be FRAUD. Either Obama needs a new dictionary, or he's just scared of Wall Street. Even if it wasn't FRAUD, which it was, then let them get creative. How about charging them with " CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY",

I don't know exactly what "actionable balance sheet manipulation" is, but I agree with you - if they engaged in FRAUD then something should be done about it. And that is something that the Feds should be taking care of. I'm certain there have been some laws broken, but for the most part I think they were working the system.

I think, as a country, we should avoid getting creative with how we enforce the laws. I don't think there is a US law on the books for "crimes against humanity" - maybe you could charge them with crimes against nature instead.